Cancer-care terms, in plain language.

A standard system from the American College of Radiology for reporting breast imaging results. Each report is assigned a category that describes how suspicious the findings are and what should happen next; category 4, for example, means the finding is suspicious and a biopsy should be considered.

Sources: American College of Radiology: BI-RADS; NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms: BI-RADS

Software that gives clinicians information, reminders or suggestions to help them make decisions about a patient’s care. Well-designed decision support shows the basis for each suggestion so the clinician can review it independently, and the clinician makes the decision.

Sources: FDA: Clinical Decision Support Software guidance

An operation to remove all visible tumor from the abdominal cavity, which can include removing parts of organs and the peritoneum. For selected patients with cancer that has spread to the lining of the abdomen, it is often combined with HIPEC.

Sources: NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms: debulking; Chicago Consensus on Peritoneal Surface Malignancies: Standards, Ann Surg Oncol 2020

A treatment in which chemotherapy is heated and circulated through the abdominal cavity during an operation, usually right after cytoreductive surgery has removed the visible tumor. Delivering the drug directly to the lining of the abdomen lets it reach the surfaces where microscopic disease remains.

Sources: NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms: hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy

Helping a person with a possible or confirmed cancer move through the steps of diagnosis and treatment: from a concerning finding, to the right specialist, to treatment and follow-up. Navigation can be done by people, such as nurse navigators, and supported by software.

Sources: NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms: patient navigator

A way to describe how much tumor is spread across the lining of the abdomen. The abdomen is divided into 13 regions, and each region is scored from 0 to 3 by the size of the largest tumor in it, for a total from 0 to 39. Surgeons use it to plan treatment and to describe disease consistently.

Sources: Jacquet and Sugarbaker, Cancer Treat Res 1996

Cancer that has spread to the peritoneum, the thin tissue that lines the abdominal cavity and covers most abdominal organs. It is also called peritoneal carcinomatosis. It can start from cancers of the appendix, colon, stomach, ovary and other organs, and some patients are candidates for cytoreductive surgery with HIPEC.

Sources: NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms: peritoneal carcinomatosis

A registry that collects information as care happens, following patients forward from a starting point such as a first finding, rather than reconstructing it from old records. Prospective data is usually more complete and more consistent than retrospective data.

A rare condition in which tumor cells that make mucus spread through the abdominal cavity, most often starting from a tumor of the appendix. It is one of the conditions for which cytoreductive surgery with HIPEC is used.

Sources: NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms: pseudomyxoma peritonei

A way of trying new clinical software safely. The software runs in the background on real workflows, but its output goes only to the team evaluating it, who compare it with what actually happened. Nothing reaches clinicians or patients until the results hold up.

A meeting at which doctors from different specialties, such as surgery, medical oncology, radiology and pathology, review a patient’s case together and recommend a treatment plan.

Sources: NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms: tumor board review